Très Historias
~Jessica Bowdoin
In the heat of Cordoba
the blur of boundaries wafts
clouds like censer.
I enter an archway, a thrumming
that hyphenates
la Mezquita-Catedral in my
hands. They reverberate
with hymns that harmonize the
Adhan
call to Islam in whole notes.
Here, I’ll lay
the pads of fingers gently on a
pew, the walnut
edge worn with confession,
deep grooves.
I imagine them heartbeats.
He stands by me silently in the
door
of the qibla. Ten steps make a
borderland
between us, setecientos años,
inside rows of black and ox
blood columns
arching half-moon over half-
moon. Reconquista,
Inquisición, las Santas Cruzadas.
An organ
roars, full-throated hymns and the
wind
holds it vibrating: por absolución
de Corazón.
God willing. Inshallah.
The architecture is bleeding. We
walk
timelines by the children of the
children
of their children playing in the
orange trees.
The toddlers chase each other and
iridescent flutters
from stained glass windows,
azulejo
magic, wings of refraction,
butterflies
in the same courtyard where
thousands died.
